Friday, May 22, 2009

After two years doing supply, I wasnt appreciating school holidays, since most days stuck at home were boring and rather lonely. But after completing a full term at work, once more I am on holiday and looking forward to the coming weeks.

I think Laura has a few plans for me in order to help her finish off the wedding preparations, and then Martin and I have a further week booked, in a cottage on the Yorkshire Dales. Meanwhile I have a ton of gardening to do (I cant believe how much everything has grown since I have been away, in only four days) a stack of wedding stationary to finish (I still haven't sourced those red eyelets though) and I can then spend some time playing with other bits of paper in my craft room.

Its great to be back home, after a week dog sitting and I am looking forward to two whole weeks just relaxing and smelling the roses!!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

What started as one weeks supply work has turned into a whole term! I am ill prepared for full time work now, totally unfit and unused to the world of 5 days a week earning a living lark.

So that has left little energy or time for much else.

Preparations for the every nearing wedding continue, I have finally found a dress that I like and fits, just need accessories now, I went along with the bridesmaids to share in the design process as they are having them made, I am busy making order of service cards and the name labels for the tables (this is proving a bit difficult as I cant seem to source the 100 red eyelets I need for them. I cant change the design as I have already made 20 ... watch this space), and slowly things are getting ticked off the long 'to-do' list.

I have also spent lots of time in the garden, mainly planting out as the greenhouse, although on its last legs since the wood is so rotten its a wonder it can hold in the broken glass window panes, has done very well, and nearly all the seeds I have planted have germinated at 100% success rate. The only real losses have been my cucumbers which grew to nearly 9" and then succumbed to a caterpillar in the roots which killed them all off. However hopefully in a month or so's time we will be enjoying a riot of colour from the hundreds of petunias and other bedding plants, plus looking forward to munching the other veggies I have planted. The strawberry plants have gone mad and have huge fruits on them already.

We have had a few family get togethers, Martin had a bbq for his birthday, we went to see the new Star Trek movie with Laura and Wayne, and working in a school so close to Kelly meant I got to call in for a cuppa and an update on her garden this week when she had a study day off.

Yesterday Martin collected his new car from the garage, and is proudly driving around in it. We went to the Harvester to celebrate it last evening, mainly because I am dog sitting while Mum and Dad are on holiday so I needed feeding.

So if anyone has missed me, I am still about, just busy with teaching, weddings, gardening and general life!

Monday, May 04, 2009

I have been working supply cover full time for the last two weeks and am booked for another full week next week (including a school trip which should be fun as we are going to see my fav. animals, sheep!) so poor blogland has been rather neglected of late. The supply school is a 55 mile round trip away which means much too early mornings and collapsing on the settee when I get home, but they are a lovely class with just enough challenge to keep me on my toes.

All that hasnt left much time for real life events but we have done a few exciting things. Last Sunday, since the government announced the car scrappage scheme and were happy handing out two grand for our old metal box on wheels, we went to have a look round the new car show rooms. Laura had reccommended the Mazda 2, not a car we would normally have gone for, but we thought we would make that one of our ports of calls. We stopped in the Toyota place on the way, where we giggled over the Eygo. A strange little beastie, really small, mostly made from plastic, an ugly shape, and ....... we liked it. Realising we sounded just ike Gezza Clarkson we left, laughing our heads off (to the quizical looks of the sales man) and made for the Mazda garage.

The showroom, a huge huge area, housed only 3 of their sports car ranges so we were a bit daunted, but the receptionist took us outside to look at the Mazda 2. Martin fell in love with it at once and we quickly queued up to sort out the deal with the salesman. Better still they were offering nort percent finance! As we chatted to the sales guy we liked the car more and more, especially as they were giving £400 worth of metalic paint away too, so he trotted off to check availability. We nearly fell of our chairs when he told us the first date anything could be delivered was August!!!! We thought the industry was in trouble...well maybe this is why? The salesman could see how unhappy we were and suggested that we might like the diesel model he had in the pound which he could let us have for the same price even though it was a step up model as they were being discontinued. He went off to get it and we were even more excited when we heard the way it purred and sat in it with the engine running.

"OK so this counts as a new car?" asked Martin. "Then I have a 10 year old peugot I want to use in the Scrappage deal""We're not doing it" said the sales guy.

We just couldnt believe it. I had known that the manufactures had to match the government - a £1000 each (Martin hadnt) but we both were under the impression it was obligitory for all companies to take it up. No apparently not. Martin was gutted. No way could we afford it without the government's money. He got quite sharp with the poor sales bloke, but it couldnt be helped, we had to walk away.

The rest of the afternoon wasnt much better, many places were so swamped with customers (we followed the same people round obviously doing the same as us) that they didnt have enough sales people on call (many only having the usual sunday skeleton staff), most didnt have up to date price lists (how sus is that?) Renault couldnt even tell us the price of the Chloe!!And some dealers had simply put the prices up by so much we couldnt even afford a basic model, Ford has put the price up from the £5,600 I paid for my KA 14 months ago to a whopping £10,500!!!!!

Finally with only 15 mins to go before closing time, we arrived at the Peugot garage, where Martin asked 3 simple questions. We were staggered when finally someone gave us straight answers without having to check price lists, or see to three other customers at the same time, but actually knew what they were doing and talking about.

"Are you doing the scrappage scheme? ""Yes"What's the price of your basic car?"£8000"What finance do you do?" To which the guy explained the finance deal was actually better off getting the next model up since the interest on more money lent went down and you ended up paying back the same amount.

Waayhay!

So come the end of May Martin will have brand new wheels (not yellow ones though, again the only other basic colour red wasnt going to be available until August so the dealership has gone halves on the price of metallic blue) and the government will be short one grand.